I recently made another big move in my life. I made the transition to a location independent lifestyle. It was something I had dreamed about for most of my life, but hadn’t realised I could make it into a reality. So imagine my excitement when I finally did it.
So, as I’m enjoying myself in Sunny LA for a while as the first leg of my location-independent lifestyle. The pictures look good, right? Me, basking in the glorious sunshine, melanin popping and all that niceness…
The Unseen Challenges
But here’s what you don’t see. Amidst the sun and enjoyment, I dropped the ball. Big time. Last week during a church service, I received a message from a UK-based client who had a pre-booked session with me. The message was …Are we not having our session today?
Recognising the Impact of Small Oversights
Granted, it was a short ‘check-in’ session on Voxer, not like a Zoom coaching session or anything. Some might have thought nothing much of it. But for me, this 15-minute check-in was important to me and to my client. I don’t see any of my client sessions with any less significance.
Now, I wasn’t just late for the session, I had missed the session by over an hour!
With the excitement and nerves that came with making this big lifestyle change, I totally fell out of sync with my schedule. I was horrified, I had missed our session. I had never done this before, ever! The disappointment felt like a sharp pang in my chest. I felt as if I’d let my client and myself down.
The Struggles of Negative Self Talk
Negative small talk was ridiculing me.
“How can you manage life being location independent if you can’t even get your scheduling right.” and “Maybe this isn’t the journey for you after all; you’ve already flopped.”
My negative self-talk was really doing a number on me.
I wasn’t even able to immediately rectify the situation as I was in the middle of church, sitting at the front row as a guest. It felt like I had a stone lodged in the pit of my stomach.
The old me would have held on to that feeling for a long time. I was the type of person who would get physically sick when I mess up or when I had negative emotions. I literally built them up inside of me so much that in the past I had fainted, had alopecia, come out in rash on my arms and legs and migraines. This was the physical manifestation of stress.
The old me would most likely have told myself that I wasn’t ready for the move, and cancelled my clients our of fear. At the end of my trip, I’d probably go home to the UK and stay there convinced that my ambition got the better of me.
The fact that my client was super cool about it and was happy to reschedule was good, but I knew for sure that I wasn’t cool with it and couldn’t allow this to happen again.
Turning Self-Sabotage into Self-Empowerment
Brené Brown once said, “Vulnerability is not winning or losing; it’s having the courage to show up and be seen when we have no control over the outcome.” Taking inspiration from these wise words, I decided to sit with the discomfort and worked to resolve it. I turned this moment of self-sabotage into a testament of self-empowerment.
I have a self-coaching framework that I use to break negative thought loops and regain momentum. So, I coached myself out of overthinking, guilt and disappointment and forgave myself for messing up. I redirected the negative energy into creating a strategy that would support me through this journey, and my future travels that I have lined up for this year.
The Truth Behind Social Media Highlights
Why am I telling you this? Because firstly, looking at people’s highlight reels is deceiving. Even in the middle of THRIVING, you can still drop the ball. Just that most people don’t grass themselves up when they’ve done it, so you think their life is perfect. It’s not. Trust me!
Secondly, self-sabotage happens to everyone some way, shape or form. But it doesn’t have to be the end of something good. Just because you self-sabotage, doesn’t mean you don’t deserve or don’t truly desire. It often means the opposite and you have to create sustainable habits that allow you to have what you desire. Basically, giving yourself permission to enjoy your new reality.
Thirdly, and the final point, when you enter a new stage in your life, you have to make room to re-adjust, even when it feels uncomfortable. If I had sat in the discomfort of working through my scheduling when I first had the thought, I probably wold not have dropped the ball. The time it took for me to get pat my negative emotions, self-coach and create a plan, could all have been vital time sunning myself by the pool, except, I procrastinated and set aside the positive practise of sitting down weekly with my schedule.
The Path to Transformation
Remember, the path to transformation is paved with such moments – moments of self-doubt, moments of failure, and, most importantly, moments of redemption.
I’ve learned, I’ve grown, and I can’t wait to share more about this journey with you next week as we delve into self-sabotage and self-transformation, and I will share some of my frameworks and self-coaching models with you. Stay tuned!
